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In lesson 4 of Pharr's book (paragragh 16) is translations into english from greek.

I transelate it as (The good godess has a beutiful plan) the [face=spionic]kalh\ qea\[face] is in the nom. sing. case and the [face=spionic]boulh\n kalh\n[face] is in the acc sing. case.

however in in Annis' key it is translated as "does the beautiful godess have good plans?"

My Question is shouldn't it be singular 'plan' and is the "does the... " come from the semi colin (question mark) or does punctuation in greek make a difference. I know it does in english but is it the same with a language that is conjugated verbs and noun declinsive?

Timotheus wrote:however in in Annis' key it is translated as "does the beautiful godess have good plans?"

It should be singular in the key. I have fixed it.

My Question is shouldn't it be singular 'plan' and is the "does the... " come from the semi colin (question mark) or does punctuation in greek make a difference. I know it does in english but is it the same with a language that is conjugated verbs and noun declinsive?

I wasn't meaning so much word order as inserting the word "does". I know if this is not translated with this word inserted into the english translation it doesn't make a question but rather is a statement.

what I am considering is what license does a translator have to choose a word. For instance "does the godess..." makes good sense, but what if one chose the word 'can' so it would read 'can the godess...'

by word decision the translator can affect the entire meaning of the text.

I may be trying too hard at this early of a stage and perhaps these questions will be answered all by and by. At this point I am trying to get a grasp on things and build a foundation.

All and all I thank you all that have responded to my all post so far.

Timotheus wrote:what I am considering is what license does a translator have to choose a word.

The translator has every license he feels is appropriate to convey the sense.

For instance "does the godess..." makes good sense, but what if one chose the word 'can' so it would read 'can the godess...'

That is an error, however. It might be that in a continuous text you would want to translate this sentence with "can" rather than just as a simple question. But this would be done with the full knowledge that the Greek doesn't actually say that, but a tweak was needed in the English for some reason. Greek does have a word like English "can."

At this point I am trying to get a grasp on things and build a foundation.

For now I would recommend you stick as close to the Greek as you possibly can.

Oops, sorry. I guess I remembered that someone else has a login name of 'William' here and I suppose my brain differentiated you and him and this was the side effect. I'll knock it off. :)

annis wrote:And yes, please, email me the corrections.

Ok, when I have enough energy to sit infront of the computer for a long time, I'll send it to you. I found out I have a nasty case of bronchitis with a 3+ day fever, so I feel that I ran two miles even while sitting completely still.

Resperatory infections suck!

I can't even work on homeric greek while sick at home because speaking it for learning purposes requires too much energy.

Though, on a different topic, I'm going to make a BUNCH of practice excersizes to be done just before lesson 13 because between all of the new vocabulary (especially which gender and declension they belong to) and the special forms of [face=spionic]o(, h(, to/[/face] along with different verbs in the imperfect, I feel that a more thorough review has to happen.

I know you don't necessarily like that type of thing, but I think the vocabulary and grammar rules are rich enough at this point to make the work genuinely interesting and valid. Maybe I'll throw in some accenting excersizes too.